Lawsuit Accuses San Angelo School of Ignoring Preschooler’s Abuse

The complaint, filed by The Button Law Firm on behalf of parents Patrick and Mellissa Killingsworth, details a pattern of physical and emotional mistreatment occurring on March 24, 2021. According to the filing, the teacher dragged the child by her arm, pushed her to the floor, and locked her alone in a dark closet while threatening to have her arrested. Staff members reportedly walked past the classroom throughout the ordeal, hearing the child’s cries and the teacher’s screams, yet failed to intervene.

Text messages cited in the lawsuit indicate that school leadership was aware the teacher was nearing a mental health breakdown for months but continued to schedule her for classroom duty. Even after the director allegedly viewed the recorded abuse, the school did not remove the teacher or report the incident to authorities, violating state childcare laws. The family further claims the school failed to preserve critical evidence, leaving hours of surveillance footage from that day missing. Attorney Russell Button stated that the school’s leadership chose to bury the truth rather than address the systemic failures that allowed the abuse to occur.